Shauno Isomura
Classical Violinist

Shauno Isomura is a Japanese violinist born and raised in New Zealand. He studied violin under the tutelage of Stephen Larsen, Dimitri Atanasov, Elena Abramova, and chamber music under Edith Salzman, Katherine Austin and James Tennant.

 

Praised for his delicate and sensitive interpretations, drawing strong influences from traditional Japanese culture and the contemporary classical repertoire, Shauno has strived to present new music by living artists, collaborating with composers and performers aborad including MissyMazzoli (USA), Elena Kats-Chernin (AUS), Benyamin Nuss (GER), Gao Ping (CHN), Michiru Oshima (JP), Ramon van Engelenhoven (NL), Noriyuki Iwadare (JP), Yao Chen (CHN) among others.

He is a 1st prize winner of competitions including the Salzburg Grand Prize Virtuoso International String Competition, 2014, 2015 and 2016 Chamber Music New Zealand Music Society Competition, KBB/APO National Young Performers Competition, University of Auckland Graduation Gala Concerto Competition, Pettman Concerto Auckland Competition, and the American Fine Arts Festival International Competition. His International competition success has brought him invitations to perform in Austria & Italy in 2016 and the Weill Recital Hall - Carnegie Hall in 2017.

 

He is also recipient of the Dame Malvina Foundation Arts Excellence Award, the Carl Alberta Rosenfeldt Prize, the Birmingham Wallace Emerging Artists Prize, NZSO Fellowship Scholar in 2015, and has performed as a soloist with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Akaroa International Music Festival Orchestra and the University of Auckland Symphony Orchestra, the latter two which he has also been a concert master of.

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He has toured under Chamber Music New Zealand as the lead violinist of the Pettman Quintet, touring alongside the New Zealand String Quartet in 2016, then again as a leader of the Mazzoli Trio in 2018. In 2017, he embarked on the Tsunami Violin Concert Tour with his pianist brother Kent Isomura. This was a concert tour dedicated to the victims of the 2011 Japan Earthquake and Tsunami featuring an all Japanese composer programme with works by Toru Takemitsu, Yasushi Akutagawa, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Akira Ifukube. The tour attracted a full house audience in the Auckland Town Hall Concert Chamber. Entire funds raised during this tour were sent to Japan to help those affected by the natural disaster.

The 2017 tour was followed by a tour in Japan which held in Tokyo, Tomakomai, Yamada-machi, Naoshima, and in the Okayama Renaiss Hall where the brothers performed a recital together with Concert Mistress of Okayama Philharmonic Orchestra, Hiroko Kondo. The programme included a world premiere of Ji for violin and piano, written for Shauno and Kent by Chinese/New Zealand composer Xu Tang.

In 2019, Shauno and his brother Kent were engaged as residency artist at the Capital Normal University Conservatory of Music, South China Normal University School of Music and South China University of Technology School of Music, holding multiple seminars, workshops, masterclasses, and performing recitals of music by Japanese, Chinese and New Zealand composers. The programme included a world premiere of Inquietude for violin and piano, a virtuosic duo work by associate professor Yao Chen of Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing.

Since 2020, Shauno has made musical engagements prominently in Japan, performing recitals with Benyamin Nuss, Kumi Tanioka, Yoshitaka Hirota, Noriyuki Iwadare, Naoshi Mizuta and has contributed his talent on several commercial works both as violinist and soundtrack composer.